Frances Micklow/The Star-LedgerFormer Gov. Jim McGreevey said President Obama's viewpoint on gay marriage "represents a moral turning point that civil liberties and the basic dignity of all persons ought to be respected."

Former Gov. Jim McGreevey whose secret affair with a male aide led to the downfall of his administration, said President Obama's position marked a turning point in American history.

"The President's decision today represents a moral turning point that civil liberties and the basic dignity of all persons ought to be respected," McGreevey told The Star-Ledger just moments after Obama publicly re-staked his position in support of gay marriage.

"Particularly in light of the pending election, the president need not have done this," McGreevey said. "The safer, prudent course would have been to be quiet or send the quote, unquote political signals prior to the election."

McGreevey added, "The fact that the president made the political decision today speaks to his character and resolve to ensure that the promise of America is present for the LGBT community."

While there will almost certainly be an anti-gay backlash, McGreevey said he hoped the President's position would give gay Americans some normalcy.

"Nothing will change tomorrow. Life will go on and gay couples who want to raise children and live lives ironically want the normalcy and the ordinariness of everyone else’s life," he said. "What gay marriage does is, ironically, remove, in part, the exceptional quality, the distinctive quality of being gay and actually make life all that much more ordinary."

McGreevey currently counsels female inmates at the Hudson County Correctional Center, where he focuses on drug rehabilitation. He is a vocal advocate of more treatment and less incarceration for drug convictions.

As recently as 2004, homosexuality was enough of a taboo issue for McGreevey to conceal his own sexuality from his family and voters. McGreevey resigned his office when it was discovered that he put his formerlover, Golan Cipel, on the state payroll. Eight years later, the former governor said a new generation has changed the political dynamic drastically.

"The public clearly outpaced the political class," he said.

"I think it's also this generation," McGreevey said. In a recent appearance before a group of LGBT college students, McGreevey said he noticed the stigma surrounding homosexuality had died down significantly. "The fact that they were gay was almost incidental. It was not the heavy burden that it was for me and perhaps for my generation."